1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and system for submitting jobs to a reproduction center.
2. Description of the Related Art
A reproduction center, e.g. a central reproduction department of a company, a commercial copy shop or the like, includes a number of print engines suitable for printing a number, typically a comparatively large number, of copies of a document. The document is submitted by a user or requester who will briefly be termed “client” hereinafter, in accordance with job specifications that have been specified by the client. The job specifications may for example include the number of copies to be printed, the desired paper format, e.g., A3 or A4, color specifications such as black and white copies or full color copies, the selection of simplex copies or duplex copies, the desired finish of the copies, e.g. stapled or bound as a booklet or brochure, and the like. These job specifications are normally indicated on an order form which is frequently called “job ticket” and which also includes an identification of the client, the destination to which the copies are to be delivered and other necessary information.
Conventionally, the document or documents forming the job are submitted to the reproduction center in the form of a hard copy on paper, accompanied by the order form, also on paper, which has been filled in by the client.
Since most documents are currently created electronically by a word processing application or the like on a multi-purpose computer, it appears to be attractive to submit these documents to the reproduction center electronically rather than on paper. For example, this can be accomplished with existing internet technology, such as by sending the order form to the reproduction center as an e-mail to which the document to be printed is attached as a document file. It is found however that this electronic submission procedure, despite its apparent advantages, has not yet become common practice. One reason may be that the electronic submission procedure is still not convenient enough and requires too much manual work on behalf of both the client and the operator in the reproduction center. On behalf of the client, it is necessary to save the document to be printed in a suitable format and to leave the desktop application with which the document has been created, in order to prepare and transmit the order form. At the reproduction center, it is necessary for the operator to suitably file the information given on order forms received from various clients and to suitably process the associated document files, without confusing the document files and the order forms respectively associated therewith.
In a certain sense, electronic job submission is practiced already in office installations consisting of a number of personal computers and one or more print engines linked together by a local area network (LAN). In such a network, it is possible for the user or client to print a document without leaving the desktop application, simply by calling up the print function of that application, so that the document will be transmitted to the printer and will be printed under the control of a printer driver installed on the computer. Such a system may even include the transmission of data through a public network, as is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,285. This document relates to a specific image transmission system in which a hierarchic menu displayed on the monitor screen of the user enables the user to select one of various remote or local printers and to set the job specifications in accordance with the capability of the specific printer he has selected.
In these known systems, however, it is the user himself who decides which print engine is to perform the print job. For this reason, these known systems are not suitable for a reproduction center which serves a large number of clients and in which, accordingly, the print jobs must thoroughly be scheduled in order to optimally utilize the available reproduction capacity. In addition, the applicability of the known electronic job submission systems is limited by the fact that the software installed on the computer of each client must specifically be adapted to the printer or printers available within the network. Thus, if a new printer is installed in the reproduction center or new functionality is added, it would be necessary to reconfigure the pertinent software (i.e., the printer driver) in the computer of each client.